Pizzeria workers walk out to protest restaurant that 'does not take covid seriously'
After the last orders from the weekend lunch rush were handled, the time had come for the pizzeria employees to walk out - a protest, they say, stemming from the Maine restaurant's lax coronavirus safety protocols and for allegedly not telling them about several recent infections among co-workers.
Workers who walked off the job Sunday in Portland, Maine, accuse the Portland Pie Co. of ignoring their pleas for months for improved health measures at the workplace, as well as severe understaffing. Ashley McAndrew, a bartender who ended up quitting Sunday over the protocols, wrote on Instagram that employees were not properly informed when at least five co-workers tested positive for coronavirus over the past month, with "many of us not even knowing we were exposed."
"Despite voicing our concerns to corporate over the past few months, and even offering suggestions for change, it is not somewhere I feel safe or appreciated anymore," McAndrew wrote. "The company does not take covid seriously, and have even gone as far as to not inform us when one of our own tests positive; instead just allowing us to continue working, unmasked, and putting ourselves, our families and our community at risk, just so they can continue to make money."
Lauren Saxon, a bartender at the restaurant who was not working at the time of the walkout, told The Washington Post on Tuesday that the protest came after months of workers feeling as if the owners were not taking the necessary precautions to protect them from a virus that's now surging nationwide thanks to the highly transmissible omicron variant.
"It's been tough getting people to just wear masks," she said. "We haven't seen a lot of change."
Portland Pie Co. CEO Jeff Perkins did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. He told the Bangor Daily News that Portland Pie Co., which has eight locations in Maine and New Hampshire, recently reinstated a mask requirement for all employees in response to Maine's recent climbing coronavirus case count, a rise that may have leveled off. He noted to the newspaper that Portland Pie Co. conducts immediate contact tracing when an employee tests positive.
"Portland Pie Co. currently follows all Maine (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) and U.S. CDC guidance specific to restaurants," Perkins said in a statement to the Portland Press Herald.
The protest comes as some restaurants are shuttering again as a result of the surging omicron variant. Notices have popped up on social media in recent weeks as restaurants in Washington, D.C., Indiana, Minnesota, New York and Texas have notified their customers of closures related to positive tests and potential coronavirus exposures. In New York City - where restaurant workers and diners are required to provide proof of vaccination - many restaurants are closed because of the surge.
Maine is the only state in the country to report a seven-day average for new cases that's declined from the previous period, according to data tracked by The Post. Deaths and hospitalizations are up, but not at a higher rate than other states with much larger totals.
With 76 percent of its population vaccinated, Maine is among the states with the highest vaccination rate in the country - and is outpacing the national rate of 62 percent.
Despite the statewide increase in cases, the Portland City Council voted Monday to repeal the city's emergency order, ending a coronavirus hazard pay provision that had increased the minimum wage from $13 to $19.50.
"How are we in good faith saying we're a city that prioritizes its workers and its low-income and its communities of color, beyond the Black Lives Matter and a 'thank you' to essential workers?" said council member Victoria Pelletier, the sole dissenting vote in the 8-to-1 decision, according to the Maine Beacon. "And how are we adding equity as a top issue we want to tackle in Portland without actually providing financial compensation to those who need it?"
The city council also voted to implement an indoor mask mandate, with an exception made for businesses that require workers to be vaccinated, according to the Press Herald.
Saxon said she started working at Portland Pie Co. in August 2020, partly because of how seriously the company took pandemic precautions for its workers.
"I was so encouraged to work there because they had signs hanging up saying, 'Superheroes wear masks,' " said Saxon, 24. "I thought they were very covid-cautious - sanitizing pens, wiping down menus, everyone was masked."
But as the pandemic continued and vaccines became available to the public, Saxon and her co-workers noticed management not wanting to return to a 2020 level of precautions for employees, she said. After one of her co-workers tested positive for the virus in mid-November, Saxon said she requested that management reach out to employees. What happened, she said, was a group text to employees in which management suggested that they "get tested at your leisure."
When she asked management what it would take to reinstitute a mask mandate, Saxon was allegedly told that Portland Pie Co. "didn't want to deal with any blowback" of losing employees who might not want to wear masks at work.
"We couldn't afford to lose people who didn't wear masks," she told The Post. "It was disappointing they didn't want to do the safe thing."
McAndrew told the Daily News that she was "sick of coming into work knowing a co-worker could have covid and I wouldn't know." She said she contacted her regular customers to give them the information they would need if they were to dine there.
She noted on social media how she once asked management if the restaurant should put up a "masks recommended" sign on the door. She wrote she was told no "because it would scare people away."
"People have the right to know if their bartender from a few nights ago tested positive the next day," McAndrew wrote. "People have a right to know if the person making their dinner, without a mask or gloves on, was exposed to covid earlier that week and now has a sore throat."
A potential exposure at work was a frightening possibility for Olivia Crowley, a server who has worked at the restaurant for five months. Her father and sister have severe asthma, and she feared picking up the virus at work and spreading it to them, she told the Daily News.
"We are not going to be here that long - this is not how people should be treated," Crowley, 21, told the Press Herald. "It is not worth the money."
The breaking point came Sunday, said Saxon, shortly after employees found out about another positive test and another possible exposure.
"There was a point yesterday that we were talking about it, talking to the staff and said, 'Let's leave, this place is ridiculous,' " Crowley told the newspaper.
So when the time came, about nine employees finished the outstanding lunch orders and proceeded to walk out of the restaurant at about 1:30 p.m. Sunday, leaving just the manager, according to the Daily News. The restaurant closed before reopening for dinner.
McAndrew hopes the place she worked at on and off for seven years does the right thing to improve safety measures, but she is uncertain about whether that will happen.
"Taking care of your people is important always, but especially when they are working their [butts] off to keep you in business in the middle of a pandemic that has already destroyed so many businesses and lives," she wrote. "Until that happens though, I definitely won't be sending anyone I care about in their direction."
Saxon said the anger from management has been overshadowed in recent days by the pride and camaraderie from the Portland Pie Co. employees who've taken a stand for better health measures at their workplace.
"The intent was never for us all to quit but instead for us to do something to get their attention over this thing we've been screaming about for months," she said. "The goal was not really to tear down Portland Pie Co. as much as it is to push them to make a change - and a necessary one."
Related Content
No escape from Guantánamo for former detainees
This tree has stood here for 500 years. Will it be sold for $17,500?
